found drama

Fast moving cars. A rally race up a mountain road. Childish tension and cliched suspense. Everything is vaguely cartoonish and very G.I. Joe. The mountain looks like every comic book rendition of the Matterhorn. Of course, I’m behind the wheel of my ’96 Plymouth Neon and (of all things) I’m out-performing my league ranking and even the Vegas odds against me. Holy shit! Go me! But the roads are getting steeper and steeper as the race wears on. Some of the inclines get so steep that the racers have to jump out of their cars and push them the rest of the way like little kids pushing their bikes up the remainder of an equally steep hill. Something about the Neon however is very nimble and I don’t need to do this. Until that last hill. The one that goes straight up. As in ninety degrees. As in vertical. Straight up to the top. I take a pit stop for fuel (which I need anyway) and check out that incline to determine my strategy. Rock hand-holds for scambling. Pulleys to help with lifting the cars. All very freakish and hard core. G.I. Joe‘s Roadblock (of all characters) tells me that I’d be wise to cut my losses here. I don’t trust him, mostly because he’s clearly plastic and a little too shiny. He tells me that Even if I get the Neon up to the top there’d be no getting it back down. I go for it anyway. Fuck him and the pulleys. I take the Neon under my arm and start scrambling up those hand-holds, all the while the snow starting to come down.

About Rob Friesel